


liminality

by demonladys



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gender Dysphoria, Misgendering, Surreal, Surrealism, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Transdori, Transdori Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26571013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonladys/pseuds/demonladys
Summary: and you don't seem to understanda shame you seemed an honest manand all the fears you hold so dearwill turn to whisper in your earSayo is missing.
Relationships: Hazawa Tsugumi/Hikawa Sayo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 55
Collections: Transdori Week 2020





	liminality

**Author's Note:**

> transdori week begins.  
> cw: internalized transphobia, misgendering, dysphoria, unreality

She’s drowning.

From the darkest depths of the murky ocean, Sayo can feel a hand reaching out for her. It’s coarse like her own, with fingers so long and worn with skin peeling off. Beyond is a black sleeve that’s tight around its owner’s arm, leading up to that itchy collar and the desperate face of confusion, lips trapped in that same apathetic expression she would always wear as a lock to avoid letting anyone in. There’s a mop of teal hair, unbrushed and uncouth, falling past the owner’s ears and begging to be cut into something more presentable or torn away entirely. The hand, it reaches further and grabs her wrist. It tugs on her, violently, or as violently as a mirage can tug on physical matter before revealing itself to be a mirage. 

She fights back. She lunges herself forward with all her might but it’s slowed by the current washing against her. As her palm connects with the image trying to pull her in, the young boy fades into bubbles for a mere moment before wrapping itself around her. She can’t breathe. The ocean envelopes itself around her and bubbles overtake her nose and mouth and there’s no other ways to breathe when the sea is taking you down with it. She gasps for air but there’s no air, there’s no life to grasp or it’s out of her reach.

There’s

… 

… 

… 

nothing.

* * *

Sayo awakens on the hardwood floor at the foot of the bed, faced down with her hands and knees propping her up. She’s coughing so hard it feels like she’s choking and breaking and her throat is about to implode or explode, whichever comes first. From her mouth, a waterfall of saltwater breaks off her lip like saliva and forms a puddle on the floor, the ocean’s stench still fresh below her torso. When she tries to breathe it in she swallows something that tastes like acid and hurts but she keeps hacking and gasping and nothing stays inside. What a mess.

A soft pair of arms fold around her stomach. “Sayo…” she murmurs as she pulls her in. Suddenly the coughing comes to a halt and she keels over onto her side. The gentle touch doesn’t last long and as she stumbles back toward the mattress, the figure she had felt clutching her tight had never been there at all.

Slowly, she reaches one finger down toward the puddle she’d just choked out. The lightest droplet sticks to her skin, oozing, seeping beneath her fingernail until she can’t see its translucent presence anymore.

“Tsugumi?” she asks, but the voice that comes out isn’t her own. It’s much closer to the voice she had just heard a mere moment ago. Nobody answers. Her head is hazy -- she clutches her forehead with one hand and tiny strands of hair slip through the space between her fingers. With her other hand, she pushes her body off of the floor and inches her way upwards, grabbing onto the bed to regain her balance. She glances around the room. There’s nobody else. Nobody except for…

A girl stares back from the mirror with brown eyes and chestnut hair. She’s wearing a cerulean cardigan over a canary yellow blouse and black maxi skirt, a combination that’s both stylish and comfortable. Ah, there she is! Sayo reaches for Tsugumi and she reaches back and when their hands touch, her fingertip smudges the glass and--

Huh. That’s weird.

Why did she think she was someone else?

Tsugumi Hazawa, age twenty, former keyboard player for Afterglow, heiress to Hazawa Coffee. She stands still in the bedroom of her apartment gazing into the mirror, puzzled by the series of thoughts that had previously traveled through her head but now they’re starting to fade, the puddle dries up. “Sayo?” Her roommate and girlfriend is nowhere to be found, but she swears she felt her presence just a moment ago. Perhaps she already left for the day. 

As she looks over herself in the mirror she starts to feel insecure, but Sayo always says she looks beautiful in this outfit and Sayo never gives her empty compliments! She fiddles with her hair, sticking a pin with a sunflower on it just at the edge of where her bangs part, and smiles with delight at her reflection.

She rummages through her purse before leaving the apartment to make sure she’s got her keys, phone, wallet, earbuds, and the spare loose change that she always forgets to find a more convenient place for. Right, she was supposed to meet up with Ran and the others before lunch! It’s eleven o’clock, so she’s still got plenty of time to get to the cafe but Moca will definitely be there early like she always is, and Ran usually gets roped into it when that happens and next thing you know the whole gang is there, so she’s not willing to risk keeping them waiting!

She runs as fast as she can to Hazawa Coffee but tires herself out halfway there. Usually it’s Sayo who tells her to slow down and take it easy, to not wear herself so thin but without her there, she can easily grow overeager. Out of breath with her back hunched forward, she limps the rest of the way. On the window outside Hazawa Coffee is an ad for the annual cooking classes that her mom usually holds around this time, somewhere in the midst of autumn. She’s been too busy with college to help out in recent years, but seeing the poster brings her a sense of nostalgia as well as a slight aching in her heart when she remembers that she hasn’t seen Sayo all morning.

The whole ex-Afterglow crew is already inside gathered around a table Her friends greet her with a quartet of waves. They’re calm, casual, much less enthusiastic than she usually expected of her friends. She notices the expressions on their face are much more subdued, almost somber from the looks of it and they’re whispering amongst themselves as she approaches and pulls up a chair to join them. “Hey guys!” she shouts with what energy she can muster to try to liven the mood.

“Uh… hey, Tsugumi,” Ran says.

There’s quiet glances being passed around between Himari and Tomoe, with Moca leaning back in her chair like nothing’s wrong but the tone in Ran’s voice says otherwise. There’s an undercurrent of dread rippling through the air but nobody is saying anything.

“Hey Tsugu.” Tomoe tries to act casual, but something is off about it; she won’t make eye contact with her for some reason. “Did you get the new volume of that manga you recommended to me? The one with the rock people?”

“Tomoe…” Himari whines under her breath. “Why are you…?”

“There were characters I hadn’t seen on the cover this time… what’s up with that?”

“Oh, that-”

THUD.

The front feet of Moca’s chair slam against the floor, cutting Tsugumi off. The group falls silent. Ran inhales and releases a pained sigh before staring at Tsugumi with sympathetic eyes, eyebrows loose and lips maintaining a concerning frown. “Tsugumi, we heard what happened. We’re so sorry.”

“Eh?” Tsugumi tilts her head. She’s clearly missing something important, but everyone’s skirting around the topic so much that she can’t remotely gather what they’re talking about until someone says it out loud. “Sorry for what?”

Himari sobs, distraught, burying her head into Tomoe’s arms as she tries to shout something but the syllables don’t make any sense. Tomoe speaks in her stead. “About your boyfriend. He went missing.”

Hazawa Coffee’s walls become translucent before they fade entirely. The rest of the cafe vanishes with it. In its place is a garden overrun by thorns from a rose bush, rotting dandelions, and overgrown rafflesia. What? Tomoe just said something that made absolutely no sense, and Tsugumi’s struck by bewilderment and completely unable to respond. She flicks her eyes toward Ran, who doesn’t refute a word and Moca, whose head is hung toward the ground as she mutters something Tsugumi can’t hear. After a minute of silence, Tsugumi manages to reply, “I don’t have a boyfriend?”

“Come on, Tsugumi,” Ran says with another strained sigh. “We know you’ve been trying to keep quiet about it, but we’ve known for a while.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That guy from the cooking classes, with the messy teal hair.” Ran blinks, waiting for Tsugumi to process what she said. It makes her shudder, her fingers curl back into her palm and her nails dig into her skin. The image that description conjures is surprisingly familiar, something discomforting that makes her heart ache. “I didn’t catch his name, but they showed his picture on the news. Said he went missing last night.” 

A titan arum sprouts around the table and grows to its full maturity in nearly an instant. The stench of coffee beans and pastries has by now been completely eradicated by the plant’s deathly overwhelming odor. Moca’s shoe taps mischievously against the floor -- now a stepping stone -- and her expression is some mix of a playful smirk and a sorrowful frown counteracting each other. “If he would ditch our precious Tsugu like this, he must be a real lousy guy~.”

Tsugumi can’t muster a scowl but Ran gives Moca one for her, then turns back and says, “Don’t mind her, she’s just an idiot.” Her lips curl into an awkward half-smile but it conveys a sympathy that throws Tsugumi off-balance. “We’ll find him for you, I promise.”

“Thanks Ran, but… I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m dating Sayo, remember?”

“His name is Sayo?” Tomoe asks while Himari borrows her sleeve to wipe her own eyes.

“Her, not his! I’m dating a woman! You’ve met her before?” There’s a gentle fury growing beneath the surface of Tsugumi’s emotions. She wants to scream at them for acting like this. Sayo is a woman, no matter how she was born! She swore they understood that, but why today are they suddenly going back on that? Sayo is a part of the Afterglow family now, they said it themselves! And what’s this about a missing person? …Is that why she couldn’t find Sayo in their apartment? Where could she have gone?

“Tsuguuuuu!” Himari cries. “I wish you would’ve told us about him… maybe we could’ve stopped him before it got to this point.”

“You’re not making any sense!” Despite Tsugumi’s protesting, her friends insist on ignoring her pleas of clarification and talking past her. It’s so frustrating, she doesn’t want to hold it against them but she can’t stand for them talking about Sayo like she’s something she’s not, especially the thing she most hates to be thought of as. She stands up and furrows her eyebrows. Before she has the chance to say anything, Moca stands to meet her. She doesn’t speak a word. They stand in opposition, glancing back at one another until Moca breaks her gaze and starts off toward a door where the cafe’s back room is supposed to be.

Tsugumi chases after her, having to tear through several vines to actually keep up. Moca pushes her way into a door plated with an Employees Only sign that her friend has chosen to ignore without second thought. When she follows Moca inside, it’s not how she remembers it. Rather than an enclosed space filled with the coffee shop’s inventory, she’s brought into a dark hallway with floorboards creaking and dust scattered everywhere. She doesn’t take a moment to question it, but moves forward cautiously. 

There are several doors on each side of the hall, cobwebs looming just above them. When she nears the end of the hallway, she finds one door ever so slightly cracked open and curiosity gets the best of her. She enters inside and the door shuts tight, a click on the knob signaling it locking behind her. When the lights flick on, she’s greeted by a fairly ordinary bedroom with verdant curtains blocking out a glass screen door. It doesn’t take her more than a split-second to recognize it as Sayo’s old bedroom and proceeds to fall back onto the comforter of Sayo’s bed, taking in the nostalgic way her back sinks into the foam. She holds so many fond memories of this room. The first time she was invited, she can recall recognizing the pillows’ scent as matching that of Sayo’s hair. Though it was too embarrassing to ever tell her that.

She notices the sound of something rustling behind the curtains. Two hands, unattached to anyone or anything shove the drapes away and make their way toward Tsugumi. Bewildered, she does nothing to react until one hand grabs her by the collar and pushes her against the wall near Sayo’s bed. 

The other one places itself against the wall on her open side before arms become visible, then a face, and the rest of Moca’s body. She’s got a flirtatious simper glued on her face. “Tsuguuuu~” she whispers through the fog of memory. “Now that he’s out of the picture, ol’ Moca has you all to herself~.”

“Moca? Where is Sayo?”

“Don’t worry about Sayochi. He hasn’t gone too far.”

Her fingers curl into fists. “Moca. Where.”

“Do you even really care?” Moca releases her collar and glides one finger up Tsugumi’s neck, resting it below her chin. Her heart begins to race but she’s still angry, so she can’t let Moca act smooth here.

“Why wouldn’t I care? She’s the woman I love.”

“Heh. Sure.” She lowers her lips toward Tsugumi and beckons her to follow suit. 

Tsugumi’s kissed Moca a hundred times before but this time is so different, everything is so strange that she can’t understand why any of this is happening and there’s something lingering in the back of her mind, like something she’s forgetting. She answers Moca with her own lips. Their lips lock together and rest against each other like they were made for this. The sound of them parting signals an opening. Tsugumi reaches for Moca’s collar this time, clutches it in her fist. She scowls into her dear friend’s heart.

Moca smirks, she raises her eyebrows. “Damn Sayochi, if I’d known you were such a good kisser, I’d have gone after you before Tsugu stole you away~.”

“I’m not Sayo. Tell me where she is.”

The fabric of her shirt slips through Tsugumi’s fingers as she backs away. “Ehehe~ Good one, Sayochi.”

The scene starts to shift. The room’s walls crumble and beyond them is the inside of an old rustic cabin filled with antique furniture. Tsugumi feels her fingers become slightly more brittle, the skin on the back of her hands hardening and growing cracked, rigid. She blinks. Moca is no longer Moca. In her place is Sayo, wearing a long-sleeve sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a sorrowful demeanor. She stares back.

There’s a warmth in Tsugumi’s heart when she spots her face, she’s so pretty and Tsugumi loves Sayo’s eyes more than any other sight in the world. “There you are!” Tsugumi rushes to welcome her with the biggest hug she can give, but when she wraps her arms around her, there’s nothing. Sayo is gone. She hears a hushed moan from behind, and catches a glimpse of Sayo in the doorway wandering outside. She follows her out into a shadowy forest and it’s suddenly the dead of night. The sound of leaves crunch and crack in the distance. She follows each echo in hopes that it will bring her closer to Sayo.

The sound is soon drowned out by vibrations emanating from inside her purse. She pulls her phone out to find a notification from Hina.

>sis, are you okay?   
>tsugu has been looking everywhere for you!! please text back!!

Dammit, did she grab Sayo’s phone by accident when she left this morning? Well, no use replying. How Hina knew Tsugumi was searching is beyond her, but this confirms her worst fear that Sayo really was missing. She tries to track the faintest sound from the forest, but she’s now out of range of those footsteps she heard earlier and didn’t have the foresight to keep an eye on where she came from. She’s officially lost in a spooky forest late at night without so much as a flashlight to guide her back home.

Another buzz. But this time there’s texts sent from her end?

**> Why would she be looking for me?** **  
** **> She hates me…**   
>tsugu doesn’t hate you at all??   
>sis she loves you so much??   
**> I wish she wouldn’t.** **  
** **> I wish she’d find someone else who wasn’t a hideous monster like me** **  
** **> Someone who could actually make her happy** **  
** **> She deserves better than me.**

She’s horrified by the text she sees on the screen, obviously written by Sayo but how? Whatever. It hurts too much to look for too long so she hides the phone back in her purse and continues wandering through the branches, beneath the everlasting oak trees whose trunks consume most of what little vision she has. Soon she hears a wail from across the woods and follows as quickly as she can. The voice sounds so much like Sayo’s, it has to be her.

She stumbles her way into a clearing and trips and falls face-first into the grass but when she looks up, Sayo is curled up just ahead of her, sobbing uncontrollably and sniffling. There’s something familiar about the scene but she can’t quite put her finger on it. “Sayo! I’m right here! Tell me what’s wrong!” she calls out.

Sayo looks toward her, tears streaming down from both eyes. “Why?” she asks.

Tsugumi tears away at the grass and lifts herself up to join Sayo’s side. Her arms coil around Sayo’s stomach. This time, there’s that wonderful sensation she gets when she and Sayo are together, holding each other like nothing else in the world matters. “Why what?”

“Why do you love me?”

“That’s a silly question. I don’t need a reason to love you.”

Wait.

“I don’t understand.”

She remembers.

“Well, I love your eyes, your hair, your face. I love the way you hold me when I’m scared, I love the way you smile so shyly when you’re happy and how you don’t hesitate to show it in front of me.” 

It’s not just Deja Vu. 

“I know you hate it but I love your voice. It makes me feel at ease whenever I hear it.”

She’s had this conversation before.

“Tsugumi, I…”

But wasn’t it her…

“I wish I could see myself the way you do.”

running away?

“I want to love the things you love about me…”

Wasn’t she the one…

“But I don’t think I ever will.”

who said that?

“Sayo…” Tsugumi holds on tight. She can’t let go. Sayo might wish it, but she can’t. So Sayo remains where she is until the sun rises. Dawn’s light melts her image away with the rest of night around her and Tsugumi can’t help shed tears of her own as Sayo vanishes in her arms.

She feels herself sinking into the earth. The dirt she’s crouched over feels grainy now, and sticky, soggy. She tries to pull her feet out, but her legs won’t budge. The forest surrounding her is no longer a forest but sand, for miles and miles. She’s sinking, so sluggish, and can’t fight back. 

She closes her eyes.

She makes a wish.

And whispers it to herself.

She’s on a sandy beach beneath clear blue skies. She’s wearing a sunhat and an adorable autumn yellow one-piece with frills on every end. Sayo is there hiding beneath an umbrella’s shade, with sunglasses, a white tee shirt, and swim trunks on. Tsugumi can feel Sayo’s ogling from beneath the darkened lenses, like invisible hands drifting against her skin. It’s not often she gets to indulge in this sort of luxury.

“You look amazing, Tsugumi,” Sayo says.

“T-thanks!” Tsugumi can’t hide the bashful blush across her cheeks, but she grins with delight at her girlfriend’s compliment. Tsugumi has never been particularly interested in looking attractive beyond not being plain, but when it’s just with Sayo, it’s different. She loves the particular attention she gets from Sayo when she wears a bathing suit, or when she wears one of their more alluring stage outfits from the band days, like those red school uniforms with the short skirts. Sayo tends to apologize when she expresses that sort of attraction, but Tsugumi would rather take a compliment without an apology.

She’d love to see Sayo in a swimsuit someday, too. Maybe a bikini, with one of those skirts for her around her hips? Just imagining it causes her blushing to grow even more intense. But she understands why Sayo can’t do it. It must be tough. She loves Sayo’s body so much, but Sayo has to keep herself hidden for her own safety and it hurts to have to watch. It hurts to see the one you love hurting like this.

Hurting.

Sayo walks to the shore. Waves break against her bare feet and tug her in gently, gently. It calls to her. Tsugumi joins her side. The tide grows more rapid. It’s like a song in her ears, so alluring, so tempting. It wants to drag her down. Like hands at her ankles. Pulling her past the shoreline. Pulling her underwater. Pulling her deep. Pulling her into the furthest depths, where that image awaits.

It’s starting to come back to her. She sees the mess of hair on his head like it hasn’t been trimmed in years but never grows past the shoulders. He’s scratching at his neck, that uniform is so tight around him. He can’t bear to wear it any longer but it’s the only thing he’s allowed to wear.

When Tsugumi sees his sullen green eyes staring back at her, she remembers who she is. And who she isn’t.

The image reaches out to her. And she -- Sayo, won’t let it get her this time. She recoils far enough back to dodge, but his hand can reach further than it should. She feels it grip around her wrist. It feels different than last time, like a physical thing but only barely. Like soap oozing over her skin. She tries to fight back, but when she thrusts forward and her foot lands on the image’s head, it envelopes her in a whirlpool of bubbles and chokes the life out of her.

* * *

It’s the same scene as before: Tsugumi Hazawa pulling herself off the floor of her apartment bedroom after soaking it with saltwater. This time is different though. Her shoulders feel more bulky and there’s an apple in her throat that wasn’t there previously. 

A phone rings. Not her cell phone; it’s an old-fashion telephone with a chord and dial that looks like the sort of thing you’d only find in a museum in this day and age. The rings are like several bells being set off at once that all go silent when she grasps the phone and places it to her ear. This time another familiar conversation echoes in her ears, and her heart aches with each word.

“You would be better off without me.”

“Sayo, that’s not true.”

“There’s plenty of women out there who aren’t as stupid and difficult as I am.”

“I don’t care.”

“...”

“You’re the woman I love.”

“...”

“Sayo, listen to me. I don’t want to date anyone else. I want to be with you, I want to stay with you. I love you.”

Sayo’s voice weakens and cracks, her sobs overtake any coherent words she could form.

“Please, Sayo.”

It hurts so fucking much

“Please say it.”

to see her being

“Please, Sayo. Tell me you love me.”

so unfair to herself.

Tsugumi wonders if it’s her fault. Could she have been a better partner for Sayo? Does Sayo truly love her, or is the way she punishes herself just a proxy for something she can’t admit?

She crawls atop the bed they share every night and digs beneath Sayo’s pillows. She finds a note with Sayo’s handwriting on it, but each pen stroke has a motion to it like a phantom in her wrist, as if she wrote it herself.

_ Tsugumi, _ _  
_ _ I’m so sorry, but I’m going away for a while. _ _  
_ _ I don’t know when I’ll be back. _ _  
_ _ Please, don’t wait for me. _ _  
_ _ I love you, but I’d rather see you happy _ _  
_ _ than force you to deal with me for a second longer. _ _  
_ _ -Sayo _

The pain is searing inside her heart. She’s absolutely furious, and her cries are like a river flowing endlessly into the ocean beneath her feet. Salt water floods the room and threatens to take her with it. She crumples up the paper and grabs her phone from the nightstand. No, Sayo’s phone. The conversation with Hina is still fresh in her notifications but it doesn’t provide a single clue.

The bedroom is no longer a bedroom. It’s the highest floor of a clock tower. Pendulums swing back and forth. Cogs click and clang as they turn in place all day and night. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It’s grating on her ears. Every tick and every tock is ten tons of stress weighing on her mind. She needs to find Sayo before the end of the day. Not because there’s a time limit, but because she couldn’t bear to sleep for even a second not knowing where Sayo is, not knowing if she’s safe.

She rushes down the clock tower and sees so many familiar settings unfold on every floor. There’s Hazawa Coffee, the place they first connected, the place where Sayo would come in every afternoon to see her. She was so happy to have a friend like Sayo, someone who understood her fears and insecurities and loved her all the same. There’s the university campus, where they’re both striving for a future together. There’s a park that they both love to take walks in -- sometimes strangers will even let them pet their dogs, and Sayo smiles so wide when they get that chance. There’s the fast food joint, Sayo’s kingdom of fries where they always eat together on lazy days when neither of them feel like cooking.

But she doesn’t turn up anywhere.

Maybe Sayo is right.

Maybe it would be easier if she could hate her.

But she doesn’t want to hate her. She wants to find the woman she cares for so much, the woman who brightens up her life every day and makes her feel like she can be someone’s most important person even though there’s nothing special about her. She wants to find that woman and shout some sense into her and drag her back home so they can cuddle under the moonlight and drink coffee and return to how things were.

She escapes the clock tower, completely out of breath and out of energy. It’s twilight. Time to take a shot in the dark: she rushes to the nearest station and rides the last train all the way out to the coast. The dusk sun that she and her friends usually love to watch now feels like a timer ticking down to her final chance to see Sayo. She begs the skies to slow their metamorphosis, to give her some more time before the sun falls. She can’t even enjoy anything about the ride there. Every second that passes by is another knife to her heart and the only way to heal the wound is to find Sayo.

When she steps onto the beach, the ocean is completely still. There’s no sound of waves crashing against the sand, not another soul near the water, not even the faintest breeze.

She knows she’s here. That girl, the one lost in the sea. She shouts out into the moonlit ocean, her voice carrying all the strength in her lungs. “I hate you!”

There’s no response. Her body starts to morph further and further from what it should be. She’s taller, her hair has grown long and there’s strands of teal in her face. Sayo’s voice is her own again. She despises every sound it makes but somehow it’s comforting to hear. It shouldn’t be comforting. Why is it comforting? She looks down as teardrops stain the sand beneath her and she realizes she’s still not herself.

Maybe…

Maybe there is no ‘herself.’ Maybe she’s merely the result of everyone who’s ever looked her in the eyes.

That’s not what she wants to hear, though.

“I hate that I had to be you! I hate that… I hate that I can’t get rid of you. I hate that I can’t forget about you, that in a way I’m still you and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop being you.”

The ocean’s mouth opens for her. Sayo steps forward, following a path lit by sea lanterns leading to the sea floor. The winding road takes her further. Through coral and schools of fish, past undersea volcanoes and into a cavernous trench. It feels like it’s about to close in on her and swallow her whole. At the bottom, the image that fills her with so much disdain awaits her with mournful eyes.

They’re exactly like her own.

“You hate it too, don’t you?”

She nods.

Sayo approaches. She reaches out her hand, and that reflection of her younger self takes it gently. It’s an uncomfortable touch, rough and rigid like stone on her skin. But she looks her in the eyes with as much confidence as she can muster. It’s not much, but she remembers Tsugumi’s smile. It drives her heart crazy and fills her with so much strength, so much courage that she couldn’t have on her own.

She should never have taken it for granted.

The younger Sayo draws closer. There’s something on her mind, something eating away at her. She can’t speak, but when she squeezes Sayo’s hand, the message reaches her without the need for sound.

“I know.”

Sayo Hikawa, age twenty-one, former guitarist of Roselia, hopeless romantic. The whole of the ocean showers over her head and drenchess every inch of her. Her hair is soaking wet, bathed in saltwater. She’s like a sponge absorbing all the dysphoria she’s ever felt up until now but it’s somehow not as heavy as she expected. She can twist her hair into a ponytail and squeeze it dry and return it to the world that gave it to her in the first place. She’s every Sayo there ever has been and waiting each second to become another new Sayo who might be even stronger than the last.

Like glass gently shattering, fluttering neatly from the trench’s walls into nothing, the sky opens beneath her feet. She’s walking on air and she feels weightless, unbound by gravity, then touches the ground as an island grows from where she stands. An entire island floating in the sky painted with greenery, rivers flowing off the edge pouring into the vast infinity. And before her eyes, within her hand, the illusion fades. In its place stands Tsugumi -- the love of her life. Brown eyes peer into her heart, and she can’t keep herself from smiling.

“…I really am an idiot. This whole time, I didn’t realize what I was putting you through.”

Tsugumi’s grip tightens around her fingers and she nods. “Took you long enough,” she says with an irritated giggle. “Please come home. She’s worried sick about you.”

Sayo closes her eyes and exhales, knowing things aren’t anywhere near resolved. It’s going to take a lot of work to repair what she’s damaged and grow past this mess, but…

“I keep saying you should be with someone better than me, but that’s an awful excuse.”

it’s worth the hardship

“I want to become that better person. I want to stop thinking about things like they’re set in stone. I want to become a woman you can be proud to love. One who can give to you what you’ve given to me.”

and she won’t be alone.

Tsugumi places her free hand on Sayo’s cheek. A gale sweeps across the island and rushes past Sayo’s hair, causing it to become disheveled and disorderly. Tsugumi reaches into the pocket of her cardigan and pulls out a white scarf, one she’d given to Sayo as a gift for their first anniversary. She wraps it around Sayo’s neck, tying it across the nape and securing it so it could rest against the bottom of her chin. It’s comforting, like a part of Tsugumi wrapped around her shoulders at all times.

Tsugumi whispers, and the wind carries her words for her. “Then tell me that again when you’re awake.”

Sayo nods with tearful confidence. Tsugumi, the island, and the sky all fade around her, the world of her dreams melt into her. She won’t let this feeling go, this determination to keep marching onward. And at the end of the road, she knows Tsugumi will be waiting for her.

* * *

She awakens on the ocean’s shore and has to rub the grains of sand from her eyes before she can see properly. It’s chilly, and the water drifts into her hair before she can get up. She can’t believe she dozed off on the beach in the middle of the day. Who picks the beach to run away to? Well… maybe she picked somewhere where she knew she’d end up being found. She must’ve been fighting herself to make it this far.

The sun has yet to set completely, and there should be one more train back to town running before the light vanishes from the sky. She stands and feels the dampened sand stick between her toes. She locates her shoes not far from where she awakened, further up the beach toward dry land atop a towel she’d brought from home. The rest of her belongings are there with it, including her phone, last opened to that conversation with Hina with one message unread:

>don’t talk about my sister like that!

She doesn’t have time to reply but it feels like a push to her back. With this, she can kick into full throttle. She makes a sprint past the seaside stores and doesn’t look back. Her eyes are set directly on the station; not even the anxiety brought with the setting sun can slow her down.

Nearly out of breath when she reaches the station, stumbling her way through the gate, she awaits that final train’s arrival. She taps her foot against the concrete in anticipation before it whirrs by and whooshes past, screeching across the tracks until it reaches a halt. She’s already standing outside the central door before any passengers have the chance to depart. She hopes that she won’t accidentally run face-first into anyone when she readies herself to launch into the train car immediately and… 

oh.

Sayo freezes when she sees Tsugumi about to exit from the door. She had barely any plan before and of course she would be looking for her. Her eyes widen, as do Tsugumi’s in perfect sync. She feels as if she might fall to her knees. Instead, she falls forward with her whole body kareening directly over Tsugumi, her arms catching hold of her shoulders for support.

Tsugumi’s arms slide around Sayo’s back. Then her grip tightens into claws around the fabric of her sweatshirt, she buries her face into Sayo’s chest and sobs. “Sayo, you dummy!” she screams, though it comes out muffled. Her tears stain Sayo’s shirt. Sayo’s own tears reach Tsugumi’s shoulders and glisten on her skin.

“I’m so sorry.” Her mouth remains open for several seconds. Everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion, as if there’s only her and her and nothing else in the world. “I love you.”

Tsugumi’s hold on her only seems to tighten and it becomes difficult to breathe but Sayo doesn’t complain. She starts to speak. “I have a lot of things I need to say.”

Tsugumi looks up and her gaze reaches through her. She presses one finger against Sayo’s lip. “Shhh…” Her lock loosens just enough for her to reach for her purse. “Not right now.” When her hands re-emerge from the purse, she’s holding Sayo’s white scarf with reverence, neatly unfolding it. She gently lifts it from the front of Sayo’s neck to the back and helps fasten it to keep her warm and comfortable.

“Tsugumi…”

Still interlocked with each other, they step toward the middle of the train car’s aisle before the door can close and tear them apart once more. The train moves along with them. They remain in each other’s embrace, feeling the kind touch of relief, the stinging touch of scars, and the strain from the burden they share lighten just enough. Things won’t get any easier. But with the glint Sayo sees as the two lovers are lost in each other’s eyes, anxious to return to the home they’ve made for themselves, Sayo is certain of one thing. 

_ Someday, I’ll learn to see the world through your eyes. _

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to [silversilky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversilky/pseuds/silversilky) and [TheShinySword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShinySword/) for beta reading. both of them have transdori week stuff coming up too, so be sure to give 'em a look!


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